Five Times They Never Met
by TheFicChick
Summary: In the transition from human to vampire, Edward walks alone over the course of seventy years. Or does he?
1. The First Time

**Five Times They Never Met**

**Summary:** In the transition from human to vampire, Edward walks alone over the course of seventy years. Or does he?

**Rating: **M. (For language and suggestive situations.)

**Acknowledgement: **HollettLA: exquisite, witty, flawless. As always. xo

_**A/N: **This will be a quick one: five chapters posting over five days. Enjoy! xo_

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**The First Time (May 1915)**

Edward doesn't much care for New York. He'd never tell his father, who thinks that the city is the "pulse of the country, the heart of the business world," nor his mother, who enjoys the glitz and the glamour and the Biltmore bellhops with their white gloves, but he much prefers Chicago, with its State Street and its Oak Street Beach and its grandiose Comiskey Park.

Though he'd never admit it, part of him has decided to dislike New York purely out of spite; his requests to be left alone in Chicago while his parents traveled to the East Coast for his father's business trip were scoffed at, and while he is very nearly fourteen, they far too often insist on treating him as if he were still in short pants. And yet, there is a part of him that simply thinks that New York is _too_ grandiose, _too_ big, _too_ glamorous to ever be a place one might actually feel comfortable.

Perhaps the only truly interesting thing about New York is its harbors and the city's proximity to the ocean, and Edward finds himself wandering from his hotel to the easternmost edge of the city, gazing out over the East River, which he knows eventually finds its way to the Atlantic. Chicago is on the shore of a lake, but ultimately, lakes have nowhere to go. Rivers lead to oceans, which lead to the rest of the world, and even if he doesn't like New York, the rest of the world is something Edward finds fascinating.

Despite his enthrallment with the nearby ocean, it isn't until he sees the warning printed in a week-old edition of _The New York Times_ that it occurs to him that there's an entirely different river, an entirely different port, on the opposite side of the island, a mere two miles from the eastern side. The warning that brings this truth to his attention is issued by the Imperial German Embassy and sits adjacent to the advertisement for the return voyage of the _RMS Lusitania_ from New York to Liverpool.

"May I see that paper?" he asks the man shining shoes in the hotel lobby, who has a stack of outdated papers near his tools.

"Keep it," the man says, and Edward nods his thanks, picking up the paper and scanning both the article and the warning. The ocean liner is set to depart from Pier 54 the following day, and as Edward refolds the paper, he decides that it's about time he explored the western part of the city.

The following morning, he makes his way west, along the city streets to the pier, where the majestic liner sits like a floating palace. Edward can vaguely recall the excitement and commotion surrounding the maiden voyage of the _RMS Titanic_ a few years prior: the assertions that it was "unsinkable," the people's descriptions of the sheer size and glory of it as it sat in its slip across the ocean. He gets a glimpse of what they meant just looking at the _Lusitania_; it is magnificent, despite the fact that the name has evidently been painted over with some sort of darkish dye and the hull itself shows signs of the fact that it has traversed the ocean already. Still, it is grand, and there's a not-so-small part of him that wishes he were destined to cross the ocean, to explore the seas and the world beyond this one.

_Wanderlust_, his father calls it, and blames his mother for reading him too many fairy tales as a child.

_Curiosity_, his mother calls it, and swears it will be the trait that serves him best.

_CUNARD LINE,_ the pier advertises in large white letters, and Edward watches as people bustle about: women with parasols, men dressed in their finest business suits, children with nannies. Some are clearly here for the same reason he is – curiosity – while others are laden with steamer trunks and various assortments of luggage.

"Are you traveling?" he hears and spins to find a girl who looks to be about his age, long dark hair pinned away from her face and a small sunhat perched on the back of her head.

"No," he says, eyeing the girl warily. "Are you?"

"Oh, yes." Her dark eyes find the massive ship behind him before resettling on his face. "Father has an ailing relative in Ireland."

"Oh." He eyes her as she once again glances up at the ship, wondering if it's possible that this slip of a girl has seen more of the world than he has. "Have you been across the ocean before?"

"Once, but I was just a baby. Too young to remember." Dark eyes find him again, and he feels oddly unsettled. "Have you?"

"No. I'd like to, though."

She seems surprised by this admission. "Why?"

"Why? Why not?"

"It seems…an odd sort of thing to want to do. To want to spend days on end in the middle of a vast ocean with no contact with anyone on either side."

He frowns. "Perhaps. But once you get there, you're in a different part of the world. Surely you find that at least a little bit exciting?"

She seems amused, suddenly. "I forget how fond boys are of adventure."

"Boys?" he echoes, feeling mildly insulted.

"Of course. _Tom Sawyer. Huckleberry Finn._ All of the boys in the books are just desperate for an escapade of some sort. What's wrong with appreciating what you have, and letting it be enough?"

"As opposed to the girls in _Little Women_ who spend all of their time making up plays and stories and throwing tantrums?"

To his surprise, the girl giggles. "Yes, I'll defer to you on that. Jo March isn't quite the ideal heroine for a young girl, either." Her easy agreement and obvious amusement erase any defiance he may have felt, and he finds himself oddly intrigued by her in a way he has never been by a girl before.

"What's your name?"

"Isabella Andrews," she replies. "And you?"

"Edward. Masen." Suddenly, he remembers his manners. "It's a pleasure to meet you," he adds, holding out his hand as he has seen his father do, and the girl blushes prettily, hesitating briefly before offering her own. Once he's holding it, though, he isn't quite sure what to do with it – not _kiss_ it, surely – so he sort of half-shakes it awkwardly before letting go. Still, the brief contact is long enough to feel the warmth of her hand through the thin white cotton of her glove, and it makes something in his chest thud heavily in a new, strange way. He watches as people file past them, and he glances at her again. "Shouldn't you be boarding?"

"Oh, yes, I suppose so. Though there's been a delay, so we're not in a rush quite yet. Father told me to wait here for him."

"Oh." He looks over his shoulder at the floating ship, its boilers painted a dark, dull gray, and he wonders if the new cosmetics have anything to do with the warning he had read the day before. "Are you nervous?"

"Nervous?" she repeats.

"About the war. Sailing into that part of the world."

"Oh. No, not particularly. After all, we're not flying under any flag, and the _Lusitania_ is considerably faster than any submarine. Honestly, I'm more concerned about falling overboard than coming to harm."

"Falling overboard?" he echoes, amused, and she blushes again. He feels another flip in his chest, and he can't decide whether he likes it or not.

"I can't swim," she admits, peeking up at him from beneath lowered lashes.

"You can't _swim_?" he echoes, incredulous. "You're getting on a boat to sail across the ocean and you can't _swim_?"

"Don't be rude," she scolds him. "I haven't had the opportunity to learn."

"I'm sorry," he says immediately, though he's oddly pleased by her admonishment. He's about to offer to teach her when he realizes that he has no idea where she lives. When he asks, she blushes again.

"It's a very small town in Indiana. Wheatfield?"

He grins before he can stop himself. "I live in Chicago."

At this, her eyes widen. "Oh, I've always wanted to see Chicago." As if realizing the frankness of her admission, her cheeks redden again. "I've, um…heard it's a lovely city."

"You should visit. If you do, I'd be happy to teach you to swim." Suddenly, he's assaulted by the idea of seeing her in a swimsuit, and the mild flipping in his chest becomes a gallop. He swallows, and when he glances at her face, it's the color of a strawberry. He's strangely pleased by the effect of his words, even if they embarrassed him nearly as much as they did her.

"That would be lovely," she says so softly he's convinced he imagined it, but when she peeks up at him, he can see the hope in her eyes. Suddenly, he's seeing everything he hadn't cataloged before: the strands of her hair that glow auburn in the sunlight; the pristine white of her ankle-length dress; the deep eyes the color of dark chocolate.

"May I write to you? When you come back?"

"Yes, of course." She smiles, and he clears his suddenly dry throat, tries to discreetly wipe his suddenly-clammy hands on his trousers. "Do you have a pen?" He is patting his pockets fruitlessly when a broad-shouldered man appears behind Isabella, very nearly blocking out the sunlight. "Oh, hello, Father," she says, glancing over her shoulder before returning her focus to Edward. "This is Edward Masen. Of Chicago."

"Pleasure," the man says, holding out a hand; accepting the handshake, Edward hopes that the man will assume his sweaty palms are a result of the warm spring sunshine. "John Andrews. Thank you for keeping my daughter company." He tilts his head toward the ship. "Are you traveling as well?"

"No, sir. I was just coming to watch the ship depart."

"Edward has a bit of a traveling spirit," Isabella tells her father, giving Edward a shy, private smile that makes his throat go dry.

"Is that so? Well, Edward, 'The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.'"

Frowning, Edward glances toward Isabella, who's rolling her eyes. "Father is a literature professor. He's going to be at the new university this fall – Ball State?"

Edward nods. "Of course."

"Father, do you have a pen?"

"A pen?"

"Edward would like to write to me. I was going to give him our address, but neither of us appears to have a pen."

Mr. Andrews' shrewd eyes find Edward, who squirms beneath their combination of amusement and wariness. "Of course," he says finally, reaching into the breast pocket of his suit coat and handing the pen to his daughter, who suddenly realizes she is also without paper. Her father has turned to speak with one of the porters directing people toward the gangplanks, and she meets Edward's eye, blushing again. "Give me your hand," she murmurs, and he's confused for a beat before he holds out his palm. Isabella casts a quick glance at her father's back before pulling her gloves off carefully and holding them with her teeth. When the soft skin of her hands touches his, it takes all of Edward's willpower to keep his hand from shaking.

He can feel the warmth of her skin against his in addition to the small puffs of her breath against his palm and the brush of her long hair against his wrist as she bends over his hand, carefully inking her information into his skin. "There," she says finally, letting his hand go and holding the pen out to him so that she can slip her gloves back on. She smiles shyly up at him, roses blooming once again on the apples of her cheeks, and he's never met a girl who blushes like this one. Perhaps that's why no other girl has ever made him feel like this one. "You'll write to me?"

He nods. "I promise."

Her smile turns faintly mischievous. "And you'll teach me to swim?"

This time, he's the one blushing. "If you'd like."

"I'd like."

"It's time to board, Isabella," her father says, and she nods without looking at him.

"Well. Goodbye, Edward."

"Goodbye, Isabella." He holds out his hand before he realizes it, and when Isabella slips her small, gloved fingers into his, he lowers his head and presses his lips to the back of her hand, feeling equal parts ridiculous and grown-up as he does so. Releasing her hand, he steps back, and sees Mr. Andrews fighting a smile; when he meets his eye, the older man nods, as if in approval.

"Pleasure to meet you, Edward. Safe travels back to Chicago."

Edward nods. "Safe voyage to you both, sir."

The man nods again and turns, a gentle hand between his daughter's shoulder blades as he guides her through the crowd toward the ship. She peeks over her shoulder once and meets Edward's eye, giving him a small smile and a half-wave before she is swallowed by the crowd.

Edward stands on the pier, watching, trying to spot her climbing the gangway to the ship, but there are too many people, too many young women in white dresses and hats, too many men in suits, and he watches as the ship lifts its gangways and, eventually, sails out of the port and into the harbor. He watches until it is a silhouette, the people all but invisible, before turning and heading back toward his hotel, feeling infinitely more fond of New York than he had when he set out that morning.

He spends the subsequent six days silently penning drafts of his first letter to Isabella in his mind; he realizes, on the third day, that he doesn't know how long she is staying in Ireland, that the has no idea when she will be back in Indiana and will be able to receive his letters. He decides he will wait until the end of the month to send one and will then simply await her to reply. Still, by the sixth day, the letter has grown to very near novel length in his mind, and he realizes that perhaps he should put pen to paper, lest he return to Chicago and wind up writing her a rambling, multi-page missive that will make her think him a lunatic.

He never gets the chance, however, as he wakes to hushed voices in the parlor of the hotel suite on the morning of May 7 and emerges to find his parents in a state of agitation over the breakfast that has already been delivered. Lowering himself into one of the straight-backed chairs, he reaches for a coffee cup, surprised when neither of his parents is paying enough attention to divert him to the pitcher of juice instead. He's just congratulating himself on procuring his first cup of coffee when he spies the morning edition of _The New York Times_ at his father's elbow.

"_Lusitania sunk by a submarine, probably 1,260 dead; twice torpedoed off Irish coast; sinks in 15 minutes; Capt. Turner saved, Frohman and Vanderbilt missing; Washington believes that a grave crisis is at hand"_

"What?!" he almost yells, dropping the white china coffee mug onto the tray before him, scalding brown liquid seeping across the pristine white linen napkin, his mother and father's panicked eyes flying to his face. "It _sunk?_" He reaches for the paper, which his father hands to him.

"Torpedoed," he says unnecessarily as Edward's green eyes fly across the type.

"_Some dead taken ashore."_

"_Several hundred survivors at Queenstown and Kinsale."_

"_Only 650 were saved."_

"Is there a list?" he demands, flipping frantically through the pages, and when he glances up at his parents, they are sharing a concerned, if confused, look.

"No, son," his father says carefully. "Not yet. It will take some time for that. A few days, most likely."

"Edward?" His mother's voice is soft. "Edward, darling, what is it?"

"There was a girl," he says before he can stop himself, flipping through the remaining pages despite his parents' assurance that he won't find any details about Isabella's fate. "On the ship. With her father. She was from Indiana."

"Oh," his mother says, and when he looks back up, she's looking at his father with concern in her eyes. "Oh, dear."

"She couldn't swim," he says pitifully, and he can feel the foreign sensation of tears pricking the backs of his eyes. His parents are staring at him in shocked silence, and he stands suddenly, his chair tipping to the floor behind him. "She can't swim," he corrects, as if he can right the wrong, and he flees back to his room, dressing as quickly as he can before escaping out into the city streets.

It takes two days for Isabella Andrews' name to appear on the page one list of 102 American cabin passengers lost whose bodies could not be recovered. Her father's name is listed right below hers, and Edward hopes with his broken heart that her father was at least holding her hand as she slipped beneath the surface of the frigid North Atlantic. That night, he sits at the small desk in his hotel room and writes his one and only letter to Isabella Andrews; when he signs it – _Affectionately, Edward_ – it is seventeen pages long. He folds it, places it into an envelope, and tucks it between the pages of his favorite book, which he had brought along for the considerable _Broadway Limited _train journey between Union Station and Penn Station.

_The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn._

In the weeks following the Masen family's return to Chicago, Edward becomes a voracious reader of newspapers; his parents believe he is hoping for a miracle, for a front-page story about the miraculous survival of a fifteen-year-old Midwestern girl, but they don't know the truth: that he isn't following the ship disaster coverage, but the political aftermath.

The escalating rage among Americans that more than one hundred American lives had been lost in a war in which the United States was officially neutral. The increasing swing in popular opinion that the United States should no longer resist joining the fight.

For two years, Edward becomes a devourer of political news, of wartime reports; in April of 1917, the United States officially joins the war, and sixteen-year-old Edward becomes enamored with the idea of joining the Army.

While he never admits it aloud, when he imagines himself fighting, it's always to save a brown-eyed, pink-cheeked girl who's already been lost to a watery grave.


	2. The Second Time

**Five Times They Never Met**

******Rating: **M. (For language and suggestive situations.)

**Acknowledgement: **HollettLA: exquisite, witty, flawless. As always. xo

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**The Second Time (September 1918)**

He swims to the surface of consciousness, his body soaked through with his own sweat, his head splitting with pain as he cracks his eyes open to see the bright blaze of a hospital lamp above him. "Mother?" His voice is barely a rasp, his mouth as dry as cotton.

"I'm so sorry, Edward. She's gone." The blond-haired doctor's golden eyes swim with sadness, and Edward feels pain – sharp, stabbing, immediate – spear him through. A pain far more acute than the physical agony that plagues his failing body.

"When?"

"In the night. I'm so very sorry." He likes this doctor, this young, friendly man, and feels a stab of sympathy for a healer who is powerless to heal.

As if to check the validity of the doctor's claim, his head lolls to one side, toward the bed in which his mother had been lying the last time he let his eyes fall closed. Now, there is a small, mousy-haired toddler, her limp form nearly as still as death. He doesn't ask where his mother's body is – he knows, and the word will only make the truth that much more unbearable. Instead, he shifts his focus. "Just a child," he murmurs, and when he meets Dr. Cullen's eyes again, he can almost see the thoughts behind the golden irises: that he, a strong boy of seventeen, is faring no better than the elderly or the infantile.

"She came in with her father, but he was already unconscious when they got here. We don't even know her name."

_Orphan_. The word hits Edward with the force of a sledgehammer. Something he now shares with this strange, tiny creature in the next bed. He wants to rise, to take the child's little hand in his, but the heavy weight of fatigue makes anything more than turning his head impossible. "Is she…"

"Sleeping," the doctor says, but his tone is as flat as his expression. "But we don't have much hope."

Edward forces himself to meet Dr. Cullen's eye, to straighten his shoulders as much as he can in his current state. "And me?"

"You're holding your own, Edward," he says, but there's some truth behind the doctor's eyes that Edward can't decipher. After they regard each other in steady silence for a few moments, the doctor leans forward. "I made your mother a promise," he says carefully, watching Edward's face intently. "I won't let her down."

Edward feels the sudden grief of loss anew, and he turns his head to hide his abrupt shift to weakness from the doctor's shrewd diagnostic eye. "Save her instead," he says, glancing at the child's helpless form once more before letting his eyes fall closed. "She's far too young to die."

Hours later, he awakens to the sounds of pain: a writhing body against bed sheets, a strangled half-cry of anguish, the unsteady breathing of suffering. Opening his eyes in the near-darkness, he turns his head to see the child in the next bed thrashing, her flushed cheeks damp with sweat and tears, her dark eyes bright with fever. Her hair is stuck to her face and neck like snakes, like fingers trying to choke her last breaths from her tiny windpipe, and her white cotton undershirt is soaked through and plastered to her body.

It takes every ounce of strength Edward possesses to prop himself up, to attempt to whisper across the few feet of space separating their beds, but the girl is lost in her pain, her illness, and doesn't respond. He gasps as he sits up, his head swimming with dizziness, and he swings his legs to one side, sighing with slight relief when his bare feet come into contact with the cool cement of the hospital floor. He stands, clutching the rail of his bed as tightly as he can, his head swimming in another storm of vertigo, and he squeezes his eyes closed, praying that he won't collapse in a heap on the floor. If he does, he knows he won't get back up again.

Finally steady enough to take a few steps, he releases his own bed and makes his way toward hers, where she still twists and turns, her short legs nearly lost in the giant tangle of linen, her whimpers barely audible. Edward has never known a child this small, but he knows that they are in the habit of wailing when upset or hurt; for a girl this size not to be crying out means she must be all but lost to her agony.

"Shhh," he tries, bending over her bed, but the posture brings back the dizziness, and he clutches the rail of her bed, willing himself not to pitch forward across her tiny body. "It's all right." The girl offers no response, no sign that she's even aware of his presence, until he reaches out a hand and smoothes her damp hair off her forehead. Her whimpers soften, and she seems to relax infinitesimally beneath his touch. He does it again, finding comfort in offering comfort, and he thinks that if he weren't going to die from disease, he might have liked to be a doctor someday. "Shhh," he says again, stroking the girl's tangle of hair, watching her small face, the dark circles beneath her eyes and the high color in her cheeks.

"Papa," the girl mumbles, but doesn't open her eyes, and he's about to correct her when he realizes that this, too, is a comfort he can offer.

"Shhh," he murmurs, continuing to stroke her hair. He sits on the edge of her bed, watching her tiny chest rise and fall, her eyes move rapidly behind her closed lids, soothing her with touch and words each time quiet whimpers escape her throat. At one point he thinks he might keel over, and he moves to get up, but at the loss of his touch, the girl begins to thrash as if in a panic, and he returns to her side, whispering and soothing and stroking until she settles again. Ultimately, he half-reclines against the wall behind her pillow and lets himself drift between sleep and waking, between death and barely living, until he wakes with a sudden jolt, realizing that the labored breaths, the soft cries, the rising and falling chest have all fallen still. Dr. Cullen is gazing down at them both, his eyes even sadder than they had been hours earlier, and Edward looks down into the face of the tiny nameless girl, who is already gone.

Tears and anger and fear and panic and helplessness and rage and disappointment rise like a ball of fire in his throat, and he chokes back a sob as he struggles to stand, extricating his hand from where the girl's fragile fingers had wrapped around his own in her feverish sleep. He presses a kiss to the tiny hand, willing her to find peace, and the memory brings a flash of years ago, another girl headed toward another world, and as he straightens, he takes one last look before the doctor leans forward to lift the lifeless body into his arms.

As he jostles her, the girl's other hand falls open. In the tiny palm is a single pink birthday candle.

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**_A/N:_**_ Okay, the next one is considerably lighter. I promise. Thank you so much for reading and for all of the lovely reviews! xo_


	3. The Third Time

**Five Times They Never Met**

**Rating: **M. (For language and suggestive situations.)

**Acknowledgement: **HollettLA: exquisite, witty, flawless. As always. xo

* * *

**The Third Time (March 1941)**

Solitude. It is a fleeting concept in Edward's new life, given his so-called "gift," and he both craves and evades it. Living with Carlisle and Esme had been an excruciating kind of isolation; being privy to their every thought and desire, every spoken and unspoken conversation, had a way of keeping him close and at arm's length at the same time, the worst kind of third wheel. Since he fled, he has found an entirely new type of seclusion: the freedom to hear everyone and know no one.

He listens to the dark, depraved, wicked thoughts of the city's filth and acts accordingly, refusing to feel the niggling regret that tries to worm its way into his carefully cultivated façade of indifference. Far too many decent, honorable, innocent people die; he refuses to feel a shred of remorse for those who deserve it. He takes all of the unsated desires still swimming in his very seventeen-year-old body and channels them into one: justice. He tries not to think of it as karmic retribution for specific people – his mother, his father, Isabella, Mr. Andrews, the nameless, parentless toddler girl – but the thoughts lurk anyway, the anger of the injustice still simmering in his hardened, venom-carrying veins.

He is quick, merciless, and finds absolution in the fact that he doesn't torture, doesn't prolong suffering, that he is saving innocents as he swiftly murders the morally bereft.

The night air is cool as he wanders along the city streets of New York, allowing his mind briefly to drift back to when he did the same thing as a young, human boy, on the precipice of having his life altered entirely without his consent. It was a theme in his human years: first Isabella, then the Influenza, then Carlisle. So many moments, absolutely no choice in the matter. He wonders, idly, if that is the reasoning behind the heady sensation of playing God, but he pushes the thought away, preferring to believe in at least some shred of righteousness that might still exist within his damned soul. A few blocks ahead, he sees a woman exit a small bookshop, the light sound of a jingling bell reaching his sharp ears as she turns and walks away up the sidewalk ahead of him. She appears and vanishes as she passes briskly beneath the street lamps, the sound of her small heels clicking on the pavement. She hasn't gone farther than half a block when a dark, silhouetted figure emerges from an alley shortly after she passes it, a haze of smoke appearing around his head, a cap pulled low over his ears. He flicks a glowing butt toward the curb, its orange tip flaring briefly before disappearing into the gutter.

Immediately, Edward sees his intent, hears his lewd thoughts.

_Sweet legs._

_Soft little neck._

_Wonder how loud she'll scream._

He lags slightly, listening to the vulgar internal monologue, equal parts horrified and excited at the pending release. His, not the predator's.

He bites back a sudden laugh at the thought: as if he is any less of a predator. Suddenly, he is assaulted by other stimuli: a spiked heart rate, the sudden, sharply sweet scent of fear. The woman has peeked over her shoulder and spied her pursuer, and she's clearly intelligent enough to know that her situation isn't a particularly good one. Edward's distracted musings have let the man get close enough to reach out, and before he can close the distance between them, the man has the woman in his grasp and has yanked her into an alley.

Edward is a blur as he catches up, and as he rounds the corner, the woman's dress is torn down the front, her brassiere as visible as the terror in her eyes. There are four shallow, bloody scratches on the man's cheek, clearly left by the woman's fingernails, and he has one hand between her legs, the other holding her wrists pinned against the brick wall above her head. Just as the man slides his hand to his own belt buckle, Edward attacks, a swell of euphoric release washing over him, a heady combination of satiation and righteousness as the man goes limp on the cobblestone beneath them.

When Edward straightens, swiping across his lips with the back of his hand, he's mildly surprised to see the woman still standing pressed to the wall, her hands clutching at her ruined garment, her eyes as wide as saucers in the barely-there moonlight. He watches her warily, trying to read her thoughts and faintly surprised when he can't. He can sense her fear, her gratitude, her disbelief, her confusion, but he can't actually decipher any of the concrete thoughts that he knows _must_ be swirling around in her mind as she stares at him. He wonders fleetingly who scares her more: the rapist or the monster.

"Thank you," she stutters finally, dropping a hand to push her skirt back down from where it had snagged in her belt, and as she does so, the front of her torn dress flaps open just enough to expose her soft, pearl-pink undergarment once again. Edward forces himself to look away, but not before taking a quick peek, because despite the life he is living, the years he has spent on Earth, there are parts of him that are still every bit the inexperienced seventeen-year-old who died thirteen years earlier, half in love with a dead girl he'd only known for a handful of moments. Still the well-bred young man who wouldn't dare look at a dirty magazine, set foot inside a brothel, or peep on an unsuspecting woman, he's never seen a woman less than dressed, and there are moments when his curiosity can barely be contained.

"You're welcome," he replies, and he watches as his voice has its impact, as the sweet scent of his breath invades her senses, replacing her fear with curiosity, with interest.

"He was…" She pauses, sparing a glance to the corpse lying in the alley just beyond them, before meeting Edward's eye again. "He was going to…" She trails off, the words unnecessary.

"Yes," Edward replies simply.

"Is that why?"

"Yes," he says again, watching her face, trying desperately to crack the apparent vault of her maddeningly silent mind.

She nods, smoothing her hands over the front of her dress as if wrinkles are its only problem, and catches Edward's eyes flick from her face to her chest and back up again. Her lips twitch as she pulls the two sides of her dress closed once more; Edward realizes, suddenly, that he's wearing a jacket he doesn't need, and shrugs out of it far quicker than he should. He panics for a moment, then remembers that this woman just watched him suck the life out of a man right in front of her; surely, the speed with which he sheds a layer is now a moot point. "Thank you," she says when he holds the coat out to her, and she slips her slender arms through the sleeves, buttoning the top few buttons to shield her undergarments from his eyes once and for all.

"You're welcome," he says again, eyeing her warily, wondering what the protocol is for dealing with someone who knows. He never thought to ask Carlisle, and fleetingly, he thinks about changing her – _keeping _her – but then he spies the glint of a small gold band on her left hand and the thought is gone as quickly as it came.

"What are you?" she asks finally, her voice barely a whisper in the darkness, but to his sharp ears, she may as well have shouted the question.

"What do you think I am?"

She tilts her head to one side, exposing the smooth column of her neck, and Edward swallows the venom that pools anew in his still-bloodstained mouth. "Something…other."

He nods. "Yes."

She mirrors the nod. "Not evil," she clarifies, and this time, Edward is the one who cocks his head to one side.

"Yes."

She shakes her head, the auburn of her artfully-pinned curls visible to his keen eyes. "No," she corrects gently. "Not evil."

Without looking, Edward gestures at the body behind him. "He would disagree."

"_He_ is evil," she argues, and he sees a flash of defiance in her dark eyes, the same boldness that likely allowed her to land a blood-drawing scratch on the face of her assailant.

"Yes," Edward agrees. "But there are all different types of evil."

"Yes," the woman says softly. "But I don't think a man who saves a woman from the worst type of violation _can_ be evil."

"That may be so," he allows. "But there's an operative word in there that doesn't apply to me."

She seems to be turning this over in her mind, and not for the first time, Edward wishes he were privy to the silent ruminations of this strange, unflinching woman. "What's that?"

"Man," he says, and he wonders if she can hear the sadness in his voice as clearly as he can. He doesn't think of himself as a man – perhaps didn't even when he was human, and only really just on the cusp of being one – and he doesn't realize until he admits it that, in this woman's eyes, he wishes he were.

As if granting him absolution, she gives him a soft smile. "Man," she says. "A different kind of man, perhaps. But a man nonetheless." She leans forward, pressing her hand to the thin cotton of his dress shirt; if she realizes that there's no warmth, no heartbeat, she says nothing. "A gentleman, in fact."

He wants to cry and to fly and to sweep her in his arms and to run away as fast as he can, but he does none of it, standing rooted to the spot, relishing the feel of a voluntary touch against him. A _woman's_ voluntary touch. "Thank you," he says, his voice rough, and for perhaps the first time in years, he's grateful for his biological inability to shed tears.

She smiles, this time a bright, open, happy smile tinged with teasing. "You're welcome."

Beneath the glow of her smile, the soft affection in her eyes, he doesn't want to go anywhere, doesn't want to run, doesn't want to be left alone; for the first time in two decades, he feels _human _again.

Finally, he steps aside, bending to pick up her purse and her small paper bag from the bookstore and holding them out to her. She accepts them with a small smile; he follows her all the way home, watching as she disappears behind the heavy front door of a brownstone seven blocks away, listening to her husband's increasingly concerned questions and exclamations as she tells him of her ordeal. When he spies the tall, broad-shouldered man pull her into a gentle embrace through the window, stroking her red-brown hair and rocking her tenderly in his arms as he buries his face in her neck, Edward turns, feeling equal parts satisfaction at her safety and loss at the realization that he could never bury his face in her neck, hold her, keep her safe.

That night, he leaves New York and returns to the warm fold of Carlisle and Esme's embrace, realizing for the first time that there are different types of solitude, and knowing finally which type he prefers.


	4. The Fourth Time

**Five Times They Never Met**

**Rating: **M.

**Acknowledgement: **HollettLA: exquisite, witty, flawless. As always. xo

* * *

**The Fourth Time (August 1969)**

"Far out," Alice observes, gazing around them at the hordes of people stretching as far as the eye – well, the human eye – can see, in varying degrees of dirty, drugged, and drunk.

"Alice," Edward groans, wrinkling his nose, the considerable number of unwashed bodies and amount of recreational drugs combining to create a rather unpleasant aroma that assaults his heightened olfactory sense. "Why, again?"

"Because," she replies, bouncing on her toes. "One of the few benefits of living forever is the opportunity to experience the milestones of history firsthand. This is going to be one of them."

"I have a hard time seeing the historic value of a chemically-driven orgy set to music," he gripes, but when he looks to Jasper for moral support, the empath looks surprisingly at peace. It takes Edward a few minutes to clue in: the combination of booze and marijuana thick in the veins of all of these people is contributing to an amazingly laid-back, mellow, go-with-the-flow mentality – Jasper's favorite state of mind. It must be something, if his proximity to so many humans isn't making him the slightest bit uncomfortable.

"Trust me," Alice says simply, and, as always, his telepathy is no match for her omniscience. Edward sighs, casting about for a place to sit that is large enough for the three of them to relax comfortably without being very nearly in the laps of other hippies, but he's at a loss. Twilight is descending to the musical stylings of Richie Havens, and just as he's considering suggesting they head back out toward the fringe of the madness, he spots a small but manageable empty spot of grass a small distance away.

"This way," he says, and Jasper and Alice follow him through the crush of bodies to the small square of open space. Alice unrolls a blanket with a flourish, and Jasper smiles indulgently as she smoothes it out and lowers herself to sit. Jasper props himself up behind her and she leans back against his chest, and Edward finally settles himself beside them, near the edge of the blanket.

While he is still not entirely at ease with being the lone single in a house of couples, it is around Alice and Jasper that he feels the most comfortable. He doesn't know if it's because of Jasper's sensitivity to his discomfort or Alice's all-knowing third eye, or if it's simply because their ways of being affectionate are considerably less explicit than Rosalie and Emmett's and considerably less demonstrative than Esme and Carlisle's, but he finds their love a great deal more bearable to be around.

They sit, absorbing the music and the atmosphere for hours, and Edward is grateful that he's immune to the possibility of a contact high. A few people stumble up, alternately asking for and offering drugs, and they all refuse politely, Alice seeming tickled by the sense of community, even if it does involve illicit substances. It's just after the start of Ravi Shankar's set that the heavens open, and as Edward is beginning to feel irritated that his clothes are soaked through and rainwater is running in rivulets down his face, a coltish, barefooted girl very nearly collapses on their blanket near his feet, blades of grass stuck to her bare, wet calves, the bright yellow-orange of her toenails vivid against the muddy skin of her feet.

"Shit," she says, even as she's laughing. "Sorry. Too many damn people."

"No problem!" Alice chirps, as if she's a hostess at a party.

Edward can tell from the girl's eyes that she's got something more than music coursing through her veins, but she's not nearly as obnoxiously out of it as too many of the people around them. She just seems…happy. Pleasantly baked. "What's your name?" Alice presses when the girl doesn't immediately get up and continue on her way, and she turns her dilated eyes on her, grinning.

"You can call me Janis," the girl says, and Edward would know she was lying even if he couldn't read her mind.

"As in Joplin?" he only half-teases, and she turns her pleased smile on him.

"Exactly like Joplin," she agrees, letting her eyes fall closed and swaying slightly to the sitar music coming from the direction of the stage. "God, isn't he great?"

"Sure," Edward agrees, even if sitar music isn't really his thing.

"He taught George Harrison to play the sitar, man. George _Fucking_ Harrison! Jesus." The girl – not-Janis – is still swaying, her hand coming to grip Edward's denim-clad ankle, and he takes the opportunity to study her. Her cheeks are sunburned, and there are a few faintly visible freckles across the bridge of her nose. Edward lets himself take a breath, despite the fact that he's been avoiding inhaling pretty much since they arrived at the melee. Immediate fire rips through his throat, and more venom than he's tasted in decades pools in his mouth. He immediately stops breathing, swallowing quickly, and risks a glance at Jasper, who notices his shift in mood but acknowledges it only with a small hitch of one eyebrow. Edward nods imperceptibly and turns his focus to Alice, who is staring at the girl, head cocked to one side, the way Edward imagines he sometimes looks when he's trying to pick someone's thoughts out of a crowd.

"Alice?" he inquires, too low for the girl's human ears to pick up, and she shakes her head once, minutely, still seemingly considering their new stranger-friend.

"What's _your_ name?" the girl asks after a few more moments, her dilated eyes settling on Edward's face, and he quirks a smile.

"Edward."

"Far out," she says without a hint of irony, and he chuckles despite his mild distress.

"Indeed."

Ravi Shankar is replaced by Melanie, who is replaced by Arlo Guthrie as darkness settles over the crowd, and if the sky weren't heavy with rainclouds, Edward suspects that the stars in the Catskills would likely be beautiful. The on-and-off rain is on again by the time Joan Baez is onstage, and not-Janis has evidently forgotten that she doesn't know these people at all, chatting with Alice and occasionally Jasper, and eyeing Edward with a curiosity and a faint flare of interest that is tempered only by the lingering drugs in her system and the distraction of the music. When the opening bars of "I Live One Day at a Time" cut through the darkness, the girl's eyes widen and her mouth falls open, and she grabs Edward's hand in her small, warm fingers. "I love this song," she breathes, tugging gently on his hand. "Dance with me."

"I, um." Edward tries to unearth a polite but firm protest, but the girl uses his distraction to her advantage, hauling him to his feet and wrapping her arms around his neck. She sighs into his chest, resting her head against where his heart would undoubtedly be pounding beneath his breastbone, and he tries with everything he has not to inhale. He fails, and the primal, instinctive hunger that flows into his mouth is tempered by something decidedly…different. He has never danced with a girl in his life, human or otherwise, and the feel of her tiny, soft body pressed up against his large, hard one brings a torrent of emotion he's nowhere near prepared to decipher. Affection and curiosity and protectiveness and hunger and…awakening. He can feel every sensation: the warm puffs of her breath; the strong, steady thrum of her heartbeat; the coarse fibers of her peasant top against his arms; the knobs of her vertebrae beneath his fingertips.

Just as he's beginning to lose himself in the heady swirl of sensation on his overhyped senses, she pulls back, pinning him with lazy-lidded eyes. "Hey, Edward?"

"Hey, Janis."

"You're kind of beautiful."

"You're kind of more than beautiful."

She smiles, a kind of soft, gorgeous smile that makes his insides twist, and before he can react, she rises to her toes and presses her mouth to his. It's the first kiss of his life, and it doesn't feel completely, one hundred percent right, given that she's muddy and dirty and high and lost and God knows what else, but still, there's something that settles deep in his belly, a concrete, specific hunger that was once abstract and diaphanous. He _wants_, and while he might once only have been able to guess at what, exactly, he wanted, now he _knows_, and it somehow makes it worse and better all at the same time.

They continue dancing – through "Take Me Back to the Sweet Sunny South" and "Let Me Wrap You in My Warm and Tender Love" and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" (his favorite) – and it isn't until halfway through "We Shall Overcome" that the girl seems to realize that she's misplaced whomever she came with.

"Shit," she murmurs. "I gotta split." She pulls free from Edward's arms, and he feels as though he's being robbed of yet another woman who took no time at all to burrow into his still, silent heart. "Nice meeting you," she says to Alice and Jasper before grinning up at Edward. "Stay beautiful." She takes a few steps backward, raising one hand in the popular two-fingered peace sign. Edward watches until he can no longer see her, waits until he can no longer feel the ghost of her warmth pressed against his body before lowering himself to the blanket. The stage has emptied, Joan Baez exiting to the crowd's thunderous applause, and Edward glances at Alice and Jasper, who are watching him warily.

"I know her real name," he says, as if in response to the rather obvious pity in their eyes. "It went through her mind when you asked her. I can find her someday."

But something in Alice's golden eyes gives him pause, and he narrows his eyes in unspoken question when he realizes she's rather obviously trying to shield her thoughts. Alice shifts on the blanket to face him, crossing her legs and lifting her small, pointed chin. "Edward, she's going to overdose the day after the festival ends."

"What?!"

"It's okay."

"It is most definitely _not _okay! Alice, why on Earth didn't you say something? How am I going to find her again in _this_ chaos?"

"You aren't," Alice says, and there's a sadly knowing looking on her face that Edward has the sudden, reprehensible desire to slap away. "Edward, it isn't her."

"What isn't her?" he demands, even though he already knows, would know from her sad, apologetic eyes even if she hadn't stopped hiding her thoughts from him.

"The one. It isn't her. Not…yet."

"I don't know what that means."

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes."

"Then trust me."

"Alice, it doesn't matter if she's 'the one' or not…she doesn't deserve to die like that. Young."

"Edward, she's married."

"What?"

"That girl. She's married. To a real bastard of a husband who beats the hell out of her. She had a father who came into her room at night and did unspeakable things to her and a mother who threw her out when she finally got up the courage to tell her the truth. Her life…" Alice looks sad. "Edward, sometimes death isn't the worst thing." He shakes his head, but he has no argument. What, after all, does he know of human life? He had barely started living it when his came to an end. Alice continues, her voice gentle. "Sometimes living is the worse option."

Edward rises from the blanket, and without a word of protest, Alice and Jasper follow him out of the crowd and to the edges of the property before they disappear into the woods, running at blinding speed to where they left Edward's car. Edward finds little peace, little release in the speed or the minor exertion, little comfort in the wind whipping through his hair and clothes. All he can think about are dark, dilated eyes and warm, beating hearts, and girls he is powerless to save.

On the last day of the festival, Edward situates himself on the bench of his piano, closes his eyes, and recalls with perfect clarity the chords of a song he'd never heard until that night. He lets himself relive the sounds, the smells, the sensations of the girl in his arms; for forty-eight straight hours, he plays the same song over and over.

* * *

_**A/N: **ENDLESS thanks to the readers who caught the math-fail in Chapter 3! Yes, it should have been '41, not '31. Clearly, I should stick to words and not numbers. Thanks again for reading, and for all of the lovely reviews! xoxo_


	5. The Fifth Time

**Five Times They Never Met**

**Rating: **M.

**Acknowledgement: **HollettLA: exquisite, witty, flawless. As always. xo

_**A/N:** Thanks, everyone, for taking the time to read this story and for all of the love it has received. It was so much fun to write. __The kindness of this fandom never ceases to amaze me. xoxo_

* * *

**The Fifth Time (August 1987)**

"What's the name of the town again?" Edward asks, reclining in the passenger seat of Carlisle's black Saab as the Trans-Canada Highway slides by the passenger window.

"Forks, Washington," Carlisle replies, downshifting as the car darts into the left-hand lane to pass a logging truck.

"Forks," Edward mutters, chuckling lowly. "Is Alice trying to be ironic?"

Carlisle mimics the laugh, pulling back into the right-hand lane. "She said she saw something, but that she couldn't really figure it out. Just that she thought it would be a good place for our next move and that we should start considering properties."

"We've only been in Alaska for a year."

"And we'll stay for quite some time yet," Carlisle agrees. "But I want to ensure that our truce with the Quileute tribe will be honored if we do return, and if memory serves, there wouldn't be many properties in existence in the town that would meet our…needs. We'd likely have to have something built, and the climate would make that something of a prolonged process."

"Ah." Edward lets his head tip back against the headrest, and Carlisle shoots him a sideways look.

"Distressed at the thought of leaving Tanya so soon?"

Edward rolls his eyes, a human gesture he's never been able to shake entirely, and Carlisle smiles. "You know as well as I do – thanks in large part to Alice, I'm sure – that that is hardly the reason."

The blond vampire's affections had been flattering, in the beginning, but have quickly become uncomfortable. He isn't used to the forwardness, his Victorian upbringing still more in place than he might have liked, and there is just something…_missing_. He watches Alice and Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett, Esme and Carlisle, and he feels like if he were destined to have with Tanya what each of them had with each other, he would know it. He would feel elated, relieved…_satisfied. _As it is, he just feels unnerved.

The men fall into companionable silence, Edward occasionally answering questions Carlisle only thinks, until they pull into the tiny town that seems to be in the middle of a forest. "Well," Edward muses, watching rivulets of rain track down the windshield. "It certainly fits the climate requirements."

"Indeed," Carlisle agrees. "And the wildlife is quite varied."

"Emmett will be thrilled."

Carlisle chuckles, pulling the car to a halt alongside the curb at what appears to be the main street in town. Edward spies a diner, a gas station, and what appears to be a real estate office, and Carlisle lifts his chin in the direction of the latter. "Thought you might be willing to explore the property possibilities while I head out to the Quileute reservation to see an old friend."

"Friend?" Edward challenges, and Carlisle smiles.

"Well, I'd like to think so, though I doubt he'd see it quite the same way."

Edward frowns. "Carlisle, perhaps I should go with you."

But the older vampire shakes his head. "I appreciate the thought, but my showing up alone is the most unthreatening visual I can present. No one in the tribe has phased in decades, so there's no immediate danger. I'll be back shortly."

"All right," Edward agrees, still frowning, as he slips out of the car and closes the door with a dull thud behind him. He pulls up the collar of his coat and crosses the slick sidewalk in three quick steps, pushing the glass door of the real estate office open and stepping inside. The bitter smell of bad coffee hangs in the air, and the dark carpet is stained just inside the door, likely from years of damp boots crossing the threshold. There are two wooden desks, only one of which is occupied, and there's an enormous bulletin board on the far wall with photos and descriptions of houses and properties for sale pinned to it.

"Hello," says the small woman sitting behind one of the desks, and she braces one hand on the desk and one on the back of her chair as she struggles to stand. It isn't until her rounded belly becomes visible above the desk that Edward realizes why.

"Please," he says quickly, crossing the small office with a hand held up. "Don't stand. It's okay. I was just interested in getting some information about vacant lots in the area."

"Oh," the lady says with a smile, gesturing toward the empty seat in front of the vacant desk. "Well, please, have a seat." She lowers herself awkwardly back into her chair. "I'm Renee Swan. I'm the receptionist here; Hank Cope, our managing broker, is out at the moment, but I'm sure I can help you find what you're looking for."

"Great," Edward says, lowering himself smoothly into the chair she indicated. "Thank you. My, um, parents are thinking about moving to the area, but they'd like to build a new property somewhere perhaps on the outskirts of town. I offered to come in and see what type of land is available so that they have somewhere to start."

"Of course. There are quite a few parcels that have been on the market for some time, plus a few that have only been put up for sale recently. Do you know what kind of acreage your parents are looking for?"

They fall into easy conversation, Renee rising awkwardly every so often to pull sheets of paper from the printer, and each time she moves, Edward catches the faint trace of some alluring scent – something that would be mouth-watering to the point of tempting his cultivated control were it more concentrated. He culls a small pile of paper with information on lots that would likely fit his family's needs, and when they have seemingly exhausted the small office's resources, he checks his watch. As he does so, the woman sucks in an audible breath, pressing her hand to the side of her bulging stomach.

"Mrs. Swan? Are you all right?"

"Oh, please," she replies, waving a dismissive hand. "Renee. I'm fine. Just this baby seems to think she's running out of space in there."

Edward smiles indulgently, eyeing Renee's stomach. He's never really been around a pregnant woman before, and he's oddly fascinated by the idea of something with a mind of its own moving around just beneath the surface of her skin. His body has been so unearthly still for so many years, so completely devoid of life, and he feels strangely intrigued at the two human lives coexisting within the same space before him. He realizes he's been staring a beat longer than is probably considered polite, but when he lifts his gaze to Renee's face, she's smiling. She pushes forward, her wheeled chair rolling toward him, and before he can read her thoughts, she grabs his wrist and presses his hand to the swell of her belly. She doesn't seem to notice his ice-cold skin as she lets him feel the subtle pitch and roll beneath the curve of her abdomen, the sudden jab of a knee or a foot or an elbow.

"Oh," he breathes, wanting suddenly to sit here for days, feeling the fledgling life moving inside this woman, the most innocent and beautiful of things he can possibly imagine. He feels a sudden but familiar pang of melancholy at the reminder that he'll never father a child. He wonders suddenly if his gift extends to unborn babies, but when he tries to sense anything from the life inside its mother's womb, it is silent. Its mother, by contrast, is an open book: when Edward reaches out for her thoughts, they are a jumble of peace, joy, anticipation, affection. For him, he is surprised to learn, as well as for her unborn child.

"A girl, you said?" he asks, smiling softly as another limb pokes at the flat palm of his hand.

"Yes," Renee says, leaning back slightly in her chair. "My husband is already considering buying another gun." At Edward's eyebrow-raise, she laughs. "He's a police deputy. He has a service revolver, but he thinks he might need more firepower if he's going to one day be parenting a teenage daughter."

Edward laughs, and as he does, he gets another jab for his trouble. "That seems like a solid plan," he replies, then looks back up at Renee. "Is this…I'm sorry, am I…" He trails off.

"You're fine," she replies. "Honestly, the number of people who touch my stomach without an invitation…I think I'm almost desensitized to it."

"Do you have a name picked out?" he asks, straining his ears to hear the hummingbird-flutter of the second, faster heartbeat behind the mother's.

"Not yet," she sighs. "My husband and I don't exactly…see eye-to-eye on that."

"Oh?"

"He likes the boring names. Sarah. Hannah. Rebecca." Renee makes a face. "Grandma names. I want something more…spirited. Hope. Sunny. Harmony."

Edward fights to keep his face neutral, not wanting to insult this lovely, kind woman who's unwittingly letting him experience something that he'll likely never experience again, but honestly, he sort of likes Sarah, and he's never known an adult with any of the decidedly unique names she favors. "They're all…very nice," he says diplomatically, and Renee sighs again.

"It's a lot of pressure, you know? Naming someone. I mean, she's going to have this name for her entire life – what if it's wrong for her? What if she hates it? I've always hated my name; I don't want my kid to hate hers, too." Edward nods, though he can't say he's ever given much thought to liking or disliking something as given as his name. It was his grandfather's, and his father's, and then it was his, no questions asked. Had life turned out differently, and he'd had a son, his son would likely have been an Edward, too. Then again, if he'd had a child, his child would likely have been born in the late 1920s or early 1930s; names were far less varied back then. "What do you think?" Renee asks, entirely oblivious to Edward's internal musings.

"I'm sorry?"

"A name. The prettiest name for a little girl you can imagine…what is it?"

It takes less than a moment for the name to come to his mind, but far longer for it to makes its way to his tongue. "Isabella," he murmurs finally, his eyes watching the balloon of Renee's stomach beneath the tie-dyed print of her wrap dress.

"Oh," Renee breathes. "Isabella. Oh, that's beautiful."

"Yes," he agrees, transported to a waterside dock for the first time in years. "Beautiful."

"Well. Let's ask her."

"I'm sorry?"

"Your suggestion. See if she likes it." He frowns, glancing between Renee's open, expectant face and the belly beneath his hand. "Ask her," she coaxes, and after a brief hesitation, Edward throws caution – and perhaps integrity – to the wind. He leans forward, straining once again to try to hear anything from the mysterious life within as he drops his voice.

"Hello? Are you Isabella?"

There's a sudden, swift kick that makes him draw his hand back briefly, and Renee bursts out with a delighted bubble of laughter. "She likes it!"

Edward is speechless, still feeling the force of that blow against his hand, and he smiles softly, feeling momentarily more connected to this nascent life that is all but invisible to his eye than he has to any other being, human or otherwise, in nearly seventy years. "Isabella it is," Renee says, pleasure thick in her voice, and Edward smiles, finally, reluctantly, drawing his hand away from Renee's body, once again catching a faint trace of that alluring, mouth-watering scent.

Just as he's opening his mouth to speak, he hears the quiet hum of Carlisle's engine pulling up to the curb, and he leans back, gathering the small stack of papers in his hands. "My father's back," he says, tapping the edges of the pages against the wooden desktop to line them up. "Thank you again for your help."

"Oh, no, Edward, thank _you_. I'm fairly certain you just named my daughter."

Edward smiles softly. "I'm honored. Best of luck."

Renee beams. "Thank you."

Edward nods once before slipping out of the tiny office and back into the rain. When he slides into Carlisle's car, his mind is still half on the unstarted life he's just encountered, the heady rush of something new that comes far too rarely in this infinite existence of his.

"How'd it go?" Carlisle asks, merging smoothly back on to the street.

"It was…enlightening," he says quietly, watching the streets slip by his window.

"Oh?" Edward can hear the unasked questions swimming in Carlisle's mind, but he doesn't have answers for any of them. Instead, he lets his head fall back against the headrest and, for some reason he doesn't yet understand – and won't for years to come – lets himself enjoy the exhilarating sensation of possibility.


End file.
